"Lord Life is gone away;
He went, we trust and pray,
To God, who gave him breath."
Beginning, End, He is:
Are not these sons both His?
Lo, these with Him are one!
To phrase it so were best:
God's self is that first Guest,
The House of Life being done!




SILENCE


Why should I sing of earth or heaven? not rather rest,
Powerless to speak of that which hath my soul possessed,--
For full possession dumb? Yea, Silence, that were best.

And though for what it failed to sound I brake the string,
And dashed the sweet lute down, a too much fingered thing,
And found a wild new voice,--oh, still, why should I sing?

An earth-song could I make, strange as the breath of earth,
Filled with the great calm joy of life and death and birth?
Yet, were it less than this, the song were little worth.

For this the fields caress; brown clods tell each to each;
Sad-colored leaves have sense whereto I cannot reach;